01/6/06 Japan counts AFS products as legal and sustainable for public procurement -NAFI- News Release June 1, 2006 Japan , Australia
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29/06/2006 What's wrong in Papua, - Kenneth Davidson. The Age; Indonesia; West Papua
28/06/2006 Land for opium falls 22%, _ GUARDIAN , - Burma, Thailand and Laos - Links
24/06/2006 UN takes aim at gun runners; - The Age - United Nations ; Sierra, Congo and Darfur - Links
24/06/2006 'Congolese credit card' gives bangs for bucks, - David Lewis, Congo, Reuters; Congo
19/06/2006 The illegal logging that continues unchecked across Indonesia has had a worse impact on human lives than expected, experts say. - Jakarta Post Indonesia
16/6/06 A free-trade pact between the United States and Malaysia could encourage more illegal logging and accelerate rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia, an international environmental group said on Thursday - Mark Bendeich - REUTERS NEWS SERVICE; MALAYSIA , U. S.
08/6/06 Birds of the world under increasing threat, -Ian Sample, London, The Guardian. Britain
05/6/06 Australians urged to act on unsustainable palm oil CamWalker FOE Australia Website Announcment Australia; Indonesia; West Papua; Malaysia
01/6/06 Japan counts AFS products as legal and sustainable for public procurement -NAFI- News Release June 1, 2006 Japan , Australia
Kenneth Davidson. The Age
June 29, 2006
THE chief criticism of John Howard's decision to reinstitute the Pacific Solution to deal with the threat of hundreds of Papuans fleeing military persecution and economic dispossession is that, in his desperation for a friendly personal relationship with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he is dealing with the symptoms of the problem, not the substance.
Surely the first question should be to determine what is causing the problem, not how Australia deflects the problem by buying space for refugee gulags in failing South Pacific states.
A large part of the answer can be found in an excellent report, Environmental Impacts of Freeport-Rio Tinto's Copper and Gold Mining Operation in Papua, published in May by the Indonesian non-government organisation WALHI, or Indonesian Forum for Environment. The report, so germane to the crisis now tearing the Coalition apart and consuming a huge amount of media attention, has received virtually no attention.
It is a story of corruption and environmental damage on a massive scale that are impoverishing the Papuan people who, when they protest about their dispossession, are put down by an Indonesian military paid by the company (with a substantial Australian interest via Rio Tinto) for protection.
It is the richest copper and gold mine in the world, extracting fabulous riches for its owners, managers and shareholders. Rio Tinto's profits from the mine alone in 2005 amounted to $330 million. The mine is Indonesia's biggest taxpayer, paying Jakarta $1.6 billion in 2005, but only a small fraction of this money reaches the Papuan provincial and local governments.
Millions more is syphoned off by the Indonesian military and officers who, in common with the military throughout Indonesia, are expected to be responsible
for raising 70 per cent of their operating budgets.
Despite the wealth produced by Freeport and other extractive operations throughout Papua, the province is the poorest and most environmentally degraded in Indonesia.
According to WALHI, "millions of hectares of unique rainforest have disappeared from legal and illegal logging operations and palm oil plantations in West Papua. Large numbers of indigenous Papuans have been displaced by the granting of timber concessions on their land, without compensation. Logging has contributed to increased flooding and forest fires … while the loss of farm and crop lands left thousands facing starvation".
"Mining in Papua is particularly associated with environmental and human rights abuse of the worst kind, and has contributed to West Papua's ranking as the most polluted province in Indonesia," WALHI said.
A key finding of the report is that Freeport-Rio Tinto has failed to comply with government orders to amend its dangerous waste management practices despite years of official findings that the company is in breach of environmental regulations. Nor has it made public any independent external audits since 1999, breaching its environmental permit requirements.
The report states that "the environmental destruction which surrounds PT Freeport Indonesia reflects a neglect for the law in the name of economy and because of political pressure, proof of the invulnerability of corporate power".
Injustice, environmental vandalism and moral turpitude on this scale cannot withstand public scrutiny. Unless the implicit genocide policy is reversed, global outrage will lead to Papuan independence irrespective of the preferences of the Australian pro-Indonesia lobby.
Both Yudhoyono and Howard know that announcements that Australia recognises Indonesia's claims to Papua must be seen against a background of public opinion, which is already overwhelmingly sympathetic to the plight of the Papuans. This was shown by a recent Newspoll that found 76 per cent of the respondents agreed with the proposition that "the people of West Papua should have the right to self-determination … including the option of independence".
The recent history of Australia's official and popular attitude towards the independence of East Timor shows that in a democracy, public opinion based on perceptions of fairness and justice will eventually displace official policies based on Realpolitik. The film showing the Santa Cruz massacre of peaceful demonstrators by the Indonesian military in 1991 was the beginning of the end of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor.
Australia has nothing to gain from a flood of Papuan refugees attempting to escape political persecution by trying to reach Australia even if they can be successfully diverted to Nauru and other failed states that are prepared to take on Australian responsibilities in return for money, or, for that matter, from Papuan independence.
Above all, Australia must not become an agent for corruption throughout the region for a policy primed for failure. It is in both Australia's and Indonesia's long-term interests to make Papua a place fit for human beings who can be reconciled with Jakarta. But this means getting the military under control and getting Freeport-Rio Tinto to face its responsibilities. This means supporting Yudhoyono and other progressive democratic forces in Indonesia who are trying to rein in the military as well as using Australian leverage over Rio Tinto.
Kenneth davidson is a senior columnist.
Email: kdavidson@theage.com.au
June 28, 2006 GUARDIAN
OPIUM poppy cultivation has been almost eradicated in Asia's Golden Triangle, the border zone between Burma, Thailand and Laos that was once the world's most prolific supplier of opium, according to a report published by the United Nations.
The area of land being used for poppy farming has fallen by 22 per cent worldwide, reflecting declines in the world's three biggest producers of opium: Afghanistan, Burma and Laos.
The UN's 2006 World Drug Report said Laos, once the world's third biggest heroin producer, declared itself free of poppy cultivation in February.
It used a "carrot and stick" approach, striking agreements with farmers to stop growing poppies or risk seeing their fields destroyed.
The price of opium has increased by 5 per cent this year to $550 a kilogram.
The UN report also revealed that global seizures of ecstasy, which is mainly manufactured in Europe, passed eight tonnes in 2004, up from less than five in 2003. Global cocaine seizures reached a record high in 2004, up to 588 tonnes.
UN takes aim at gun runners
June 24, 2006, The Age
Those trying to control the trade in small arms find themselves in the sights of the powerful US gun lobby.
PRASAD Kariyawasam seems an unlikely person to get 5000 letters a day. Sri Lanka's ambassador to the UN is a softly spoken diplomat, trained to avoid controversy, not provoke it. But in the past few weeks, his office has been overwhelmed with 100,000 letters.
They are not friendly postcards. They come from supporters of America's National Rifle Association, who claim that he is trying to take away their guns.
How this man poses a danger to the right to bear arms of 80 million gun-owning Americans is a puzzle. He is the chairman of a two-week United Nations conference starting on Monday that will review progress in the past five years to curb the trade in small arms, which fuels and sustains many international conflicts.
Under a 2001 agreement, all countries in the UN committed to collecting and destroying illegal weapons, stopping the trade in illicit small arms, regulating the activities of arms brokers and imposing import and export controls.
There has been some progress. Since then, more than 50 countries have tightened their gun legislation and more than 60 have destroyed illegal small arms. But only 32 countries regulate small-arms brokers.
In Africa, regional agreements have been developed on light weapons and small arms.
Not that any of this seems to have had an appreciable effect on the number of firearms deaths. Arms embargoes against states such as Sierra Leone have proven ineffective and conflicts that have cost millions of lives continue in Congo and Darfur, fuelled by the availability of small arms.
As Mr Kariyawasam is at pains to point out, perhaps out of consideration for the UN postie, the conference is about the illicit gun trade and has nothing to do with American gun owners. This has not stopped the NRA. Executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, in a video on the NRA's website, says: "This July, at the same time Americans celebrate our freedom, Kofi Annan will convene a meeting of dictatorships, terrorist states and over 500 gun-ban groups in the United Nations. Their mission: to pass a global treaty banning ownership of firearms — including yours."
Mr Kariyawasam points out that the UN does not sit on July 4 — US Independence Day — and there is no treaty. It is a non-binding meeting to review progress on the non-binding agreement of five years ago.
Although the US is the largest exporter of guns in the world, it is the ubiquitous Soviet AK-47 rifle and its derivatives that are still the weapons of choice for armies, militias and terrorists.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its latest yearbook that the US was behind 48 per cent of world arms spending last year and accounted for most of the year's 3.5 per cent overall gain.
Although there are numerous arms control treaties covering the instruments of the Cold War — ballistic missiles, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and even landmines — the numbers killed by those weapons are minuscule compared with the small arms toll.
The Small Arms Survey, a Swiss research project, estimated that in 2003, between 80,000 and 108,000 people were killed by guns in conflicts around the world.
According to the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), 1000 people a day die as a result of guns. Most of the deaths are homicides, but about a quarter are in wars.
IANSA estimates that the gun trade is worth $US4 billion ($A5.4 billion) a year, of which a quarter may be illicit.
Director Rebecca Peters knows what it is like to be in the sights of the gun lobby. The Australian rose to prominence as a gun-control advocate in the wake of Tasmania's Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
Ms Peters finds the NRA campaign against the UN "vicious, mean-spirited and deceiving of their own members".
She claims the NRA does not believe its propaganda but is using the UN conference as a fund-raising campaign.
For its part, the association calls Ms Peters "the mastermind" of a global conspiracy to take guns away from Americans.
Ms Peters says that her organisation is not targeting the US. She says America conforms to the international agreement because it does have gun laws — hundreds, even thousands, of them.
The problem is that it has a patchwork of laws across different states, so that the worst tend to rule, a problem that existed in Australia until the passage of national gun laws following the Port Arthur massacre.
The idea that the US would allow any UN agreement to dictate its national gun laws is laughable, she says.
"The USA hasn't even ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child," she says, by way of illustrating America's dislike of international treaties.
Ms Peters would like to see the 2001 agreement to regulate the trade in arms become meaningful by tying it to human rights standards. This proposal, pushed by Britain, is supported by the US.
Five years ago, the US blocked a proposal to ban arms sales to "non-state actors" such as private armies or liberation groups.
It reserved the right to arm groups when it believed regime change was warranted.
Despite its war on terror, America still holds to this policy. According to the State Department: "Such a proposal would prevent assistance to an oppressed non-state group defending itself from a genocidal government. The key issue is to determine responsible and irresponsible end-users, not whether the recipient is a government or a non-governmental actor."
Ms Peters points out that almost all guns start out as legal possessions.
Unlike drugs, their manufacture is legal and regulated. But, at some point, many guns cross over into the illegal world.
"They move into the illegal market when there are gaps in your legal regulation," Ms Peters says.
Many countries are looking to the UN for international standards on national gun laws, but this is not on the agenda because of the insistence of the US, she says.
"Over the last five years, it has become clear that having strong national gun laws is essential."
UN
UNHQ - New York - 26-Jun - 07-Jul The 2006 Review Conference: The United Nations conference to review progress made in the implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its AspectsStockholm International Peace Research Institute
Convention on the Rights of the Child
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
America's National Rifle Association,
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SIXTIETH SESSION; PLENARY; UNITED NATIONS DISARMAMENT COMMISSION
Background
- Jan 2004 Africa; Congo ; Liberia - HOW TIMBER FUELS THE WORLD'S WORST CONFLICTS - ALICE BLONDEL * Global Witness, London
Boy soldiers rest in an empty classroom, AK-47s in their laps.
Photo: Reuters
David Lewis, Congo, Reuters
June 24, 2006 our highlighting
SOME fight in thongs, others hope that potions will turn their enemy's bullets into water. Most of them take little time to aim, trusting in the theory: "He who makes most noise wins."
But the Government soldiers, militia fighters and bush bandits in eastern Congo all have one thing in common — an AK-47 assault rifle. "At $20 to $50 each, it's pretty easy to get your hands on an AK out here," explains a source close to the militia groups in Democratic Republic of Congo's lawless Ituri district.
"There is no shortage of weapons — there are plenty of them.
"Of course, ammunition is needed, but that comes in from Uganda easily."
Ituri is a particularly bloody corner of Congo, a mineral-rich but shattered country where 4 million people have been killed, mostly from war-related hunger and disease, since 1998. Far from central Government authority, Ituri has long porous borders with countries that covet its natural resources, and a thinly stretched body of United Nations peacekeepers.
The region highlights the challenges of controlling the flow of arms around Africa's Great Lakes.
Fighting between ethnic militias exploded in Bunia, Ituri's main town, in 2003, and European soldiers were sent to restore order after UN peacekeepers failed to prevent hundreds of civilians from being killed.
As Congo prepares for elections this year, thousands of militia fighters have signed up for disarmament programs, in theory swapping guns for school, training and jobs as civilians.
UN peacekeepers ceremonially burned stacks of weapons. "There are still weapons that are coming in, and this will continue so long as there are people who are willing to pay for them," said Major Hans-Jakob Reichen, spokesman for the UN forces in eastern Congo.
Ituri is a microcosm of the Congo, where, analysts say, the wealth in gold, timber, diamonds and other minerals needed by expanding Western economies has been plundered during years of chaos.
During Congo's two wars, the last of which officially ended in 2003, officials handed out weapons to civilians, telling them to use them to defend their ethnic groups from attacks by rivals. Despite the billions invested in peacekeeping and the world's determination to hold Congo's first free elections in more than 40 years in July, vast swathes of the country remain outside the Government's control.
And thousands of gunmen continue to roam the lawless east armed with their AK-47s — known to some as the "Congolese credit card" — harassing and killing civilians.
REUTERS
Background
- Jan 2004 Africa; Congo ; Liberia - HOW TIMBER FUELS THE WORLD'S WORST CONFLICTS - ALICE BLONDEL * Global Witness, London
The unauthorized practice has caused a massive loss of biodiversity, particularly in Papua, that could have eventually been useful to human lives, said Barnabas Suebu, the recently elected new governor of the resources-rich province.
"Our awareness of the biodiversity we are losing in this country is very low. Many undiscovered useful substances are gone due to the rampant illegal logging," he told a seminar on the issue Saturday.
MALAYSIA: June 16, 2006
KUALA LUMPUR - A free-trade pact between the United States and Malaysia could encourage more illegal logging and accelerate rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia, an international environmental group said on Thursday.
"This policy will only continue to destroy forests and livelihoods abroad while harming the timber industry at home."
Malaysia, which is Washington's 10th-largest trading partner, is in talks to negotiate a free-trade pact with the United States by year-end. It exported around 3.7 million cubic metres of sawn timber last year, up 16 percent from 2004, government data show.
The Environmental Investigation Agency, which says its mission is to probe and expose environmental crime, and other green groups have said that more than a third of Malaysian timber exports come from illegal logs, mostly from Indonesia.
The report said the United States had so far failed in its trade dealings in the region to insist on proper safeguards against illegally logged timber and called for any new free-trade deals to include tougher bilateral enforcement of the illegal trade.
US and Malaysian officials have barely mentioned environmental issues in their public comments on the talks, which began in Malaysia on Monday.
But local industry and green groups said on Thursday that the issue appeared to be on the agenda as US officials involved in the talks had visited them this week to discuss the matter. The US officials could not be reached for comment.
The Malaysian Timber Council said environmental groups had greatly exaggerated the scale of the problem but acknowledged some logs were smuggled into Malaysia and that this was difficult to stop.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Birds of the world under increasing threat
Ian Sample London, The Guardian
June 8, 2006
HUMAN activity is the greatest cause of extinction around the world, according to the first global assessment of threats to birdlife.
The study reveals that industrialisation and intensive farming, more than mere growth in human population, is the single biggest threat to life, forcing more species to the brink of extinction than any other factor.
Species can go into dramatic declines for a number of reasons. Birds living on small islands, or in desert or mountainous regions, can be vulnerable to slight changes in climate, while even minor disruptions of forest habitats can affect the breeding habits and survival of others.
Using an unprecedented map of nearly 10,000 bird species, an international team of conservationists assessed the greatest threats to them around the world.
After dividing the world into squares 100 kilometres wide, the researchers fed in details of each bird species living there and their risk of extinction, as defined by the World Conservation Union.
They then added information on the local habitat and terrain, weather variability and estimations of how much of the country's gross domestic product was generated from the area.
"It is only when you take the global view that the impact humans are having really becomes apparent," said Professor Tim Blackburn, a biologist at Birmingham University.
The researchers produced maps pinpointing regions where birds are most likely to become extinct in the near future, including Madagascar, the Andes and the Amazon.
Parrots and pheasants were among the species that emerged as seriously threatened, but the list also includes kiwis, disappearing from all parts of New Zealand, and even pigeons.
A recent study from Stanford University concluded that by the end of the century, 10 per cent of the world's bird population will have become extinct, with a further 15 per cent close.
GUARDIAN
by CamWalker — last modified 2007-06-05 11:30
Australian consumers, retailers and manufacturers can play a key role in curbing massive deforestation in South East Asia for palm oil plantations. That’s the view of the Palm Oil Action Group, which is launching a consumer campaign today – World Environment Day.
Media Release
Australians urged to act on
unsustainable palm oil
Embargoed Until June 5th, 2007 – World Environment Day
Australian consumers, retailers and manufacturers can play a key role in curbing massive deforestation in South East Asia for palm oil plantations. That’s the view of the Palm Oil Action Group, which is launching a consumer campaign today – World Environment Day.
The Palm Oil Action Group spokesperson Angela Palmer said consumers in particular needed to be aware of the devastating consequences of the palm oil industry in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, and demand proof from companies involved in the industry who may claim they are not responsible.
"Up to 50 critically endangered orangutans are dying each week from plantation related incidents, and the burning of peat swamp forest lands is one of the major contributors to global warming. These forests that are just too precious to lose," she said.
"In Indonesia alone, an area of forest equal to 300 soccer fields is being destroyed every hour. There are also widespread human rights abuses in these countries as traditionally owned land is acquired to make way for more plantations."
While the Palm Oil Action Group is not opposed to palm oil and is not calling for a boycott, the group is asking Australians to write to supermarkets, food manufacturers including KFC, politicians and ambassadors urging fast action, such as a verification system for ‘orangutan friendly’ oil and an improved labeling system.
"Australian consumers should have a right to know exactly what they are buying, but at the moment palm oil is often labeled only as vegetable oil," Palmer said. "The ideal description we would like to see on products here very soon is ‘sustainably sourced palm oil’, which is the only acceptable form of palm oil."
"The explosion of the renewable energy market, where palm oil is supplied for use as a biofuel, is a major concern and we are monitoring the Australian situation carefully", Palmer says. "The Palm Oil Action Group is calling on the government to demand importers of biofuel crops to provide verification that their production is not contributing to forest destruction or global warming."
The Palm Oil Action Group is a coalition of conservation and primate groups who have come together to address this issue.
For more information about the Palm Oil Consumer Campaign, go to www.palmoilaction.org.au.
Contact for comment :
Angela Palmer, Coordinator, Palm Oil Action Group help@grasp.org.au
Mobile 0413213276
Tony Gilding, President, Australian Orangutan Project tony@gilding.com
Phone 02 6687 2517 Mobile 0413 123 000
Ruth Rosenhek , Director, Rainforest Information Centre ruth@ozemail.com.au
Phone 02 66897519
To source photos – orangutans and palm oil processing – please go to
www.palmoilaction.org.au/media/photos. Use password ‘palmphotos’ to access.
Please see the website for campaign brochure and links to useful resources. www.palmoilaction.org.au
Members of the Palm Oil Action Group are ;
Friends of the Earth Australia www.foe.org.au
Rainforest Information Centre www.rainforestinfo.org.au
Borneo Orangutan Society www.orangutans.com.au
Australian Orangutan Project www.orangutan.org.au
Supporters of the campaign include : Great Apes Survival Project Australasia, Humane Society International, Australian Conservation Foundation, Mission Beach Environmental Management Group Inc. , Nature Conservation Council, North East Forest Alliance, Climate Change Action Network, Rainforest Rescue, Southern Peninsula Indigenous Flora and Fauna Assoc. Inc., Global Climate Change Action, Huon Valley Environment Centre, Sumatran Orangutan Society (New Zealand), Byron Environment Centre, Big Scrub Environment Centre, The Wilderness Society, Northern Territory Environment Centre, Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network, Peak Oil Australia
Japan counts AFS products as legal and sustainable for public procurement
NAFI - News Release 01.06.06